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GamesCom 2012: C&C: Generals 2 will be multiplayer only at launch

Following the news that shocked gamers that Command & Conquer: Generals 2 would be free-to-play, Electronic Arts has announced another bombshell: the real-time strategy game will be multiplayer-only at launch, with no overarching storyline.

According to Bioware Victory manager John Van Caneghem, Generals 2 will ship with co-op and competitive skirmishes as the core game, which additional gameplay modes being added depending on community feedback.

Van Caneghem then stated, “As a live service I think the exciting part is you can try things,” said . “You can see what the community wants, you can give it a shot, you can put it up for a weekend and see how it goes, develop towards what the fans like.” From his description, it does sound like the release will be a long post-beta test, a gamma test, if you will.

Single player campaigns might be added as a story mode later, but Van Caneghem admitted “it is something we haven’t announced yet how we’re going to do it.”

Even more telling, Van Canegham revealed that Generals 2 will be the first of a series of AAA Command & Conquer games that will focus on different times in the series' history.

“We decided to choose Generals as the first set of games we build under the universe, but we’ll be expanding after that, like Tiberium and Red Alert as well as some others as well," he hinted, "But Generals 2 was the first one, and it was one of the biggest sellers, as well as the fanbase has been asking for it for some time.”